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| Fletcher's Falcons Top Of The Drops |
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| Geoff Parling was again at his destructive best |
| 5 October 2007, 11:44 pm |
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| Newcastle director of rugby John Fletcher revealed that daily drop goal practice had been the secret weapon ahead of Friday’s 21-19 Guinness Premiership victory over Leeds Carnegie at Kingston Park. |
His Falcons side slotted three drop goals on the night, including a sensational 40-metre winner for Tom May, with Fletcher stating afterwards: “We’ve actually been practising drop goals every day this week, and tonight we saw the evidence that it’s worked.
“Kicking drop goals is an arm we need to add to our game more than we have done in the past, because I believe it’s the easiest way to score points in rugby. If the team hasn’t been successful in other areas of the game then the drop goal is always an option to look for.”
With May’s winner coming on the back of earlier drop goals for fly half Steve Jones and fullback Matt Burke, Fletcher said: “Believe it or not Burkey had only kicked one drop goal in his career up until tonight.
“He’d been hopeless in practice all week, he couldn’t hit a barn door, but they had all been off his right foot whereas tonight’s was off his so-called weaker side and he drilled it right down the middle.”
With May’s drop goal averting what would have been a shock home defeat, Fletcher said: “The first half performance was very good, but we let our standards slip and in the end were just happy to come away with the points against a Leeds side which is much better than a lot of people give it credit for.
“We had lots of ball and lots of territory, but Leeds defended well and made it tough for us to score.
“After such a good first half we then panicked when Leeds got back in to the game, lost our shape and looked fairly ordinary, but the lads showed a lot of character to stick it out and just get the win.”
Praising his forward pack for a good shift at the coal face, he added: “At times you have to adapt your game and have a horses for courses mentality, which is what we did tonight at the end by keeping it tight.
“We have been criticised in the past for throwing the ball around all the time, but one of the positives from tonight was that we showed we have another string to our bow with the way the pack kept the ball and performed well for the full 80 minutes.
“It was by no means a perfect performance from the pack, but we smashed them in the scrum, our driving play was good, we stole line out ball and there are plenty of good things for the forwards to take from tonight going in to next weekend at Bristol.”
With the main black spot on the evening being the early departures of skipper Phil Dowson and fullback Burke, Fletcher said of the pair: “Phil has popped the AC joint in his shoulder and is in a bit of pain, so he will be out for a period of time, while Burkey’s withdrawal was really just due to the stomach bug he’s had all week which led to a bit of cramping towards the end.”
Happy to have secured his third home win of the season, Fletcher summed up the night by saying: “What we spoke about before the game was just getting the result, and that’s what we’ve done.
“Clearly there are issues with the second half performance that we need to address, but I was happy with the pack all game and let’s put tonight in to perspective by looking at the table and realising we are in the top part of the league despite having a load of top class players unavailable.
“No games are easy in the Guinness Premiership, and Leeds are a very underestimated team led by a super coach in Stuart Lancaster.
“They play for each other with tremendous spirit, and if you allow them in to the game like we did then they will cause problems for any team. They will win games this season, make no mistake, and I don’t think their league position is a fair reflection of how well they have played this season.” |
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